The disposal of waste material generated by today's consumption oriented society has become a serious problem. The shortage of nearby landfill sites has forced some communities to consider and even adopt mandatory recycling programs. The purpose of the recycling program is not necessarily the generation of income from the recycled materials but instead the goal is to reduce waste collection costs by avoiding the necessity of transporting waste material over long distances and in some cases across state lines. In addition, these recycling programs conserve resources and save or reduce the need for landfills.
Trash collecting vehicles adapted to separately collect recyclable trash such as bottles, cans and newspapers have been suggested. Some of these vehicles are simply constructed as an assembly of separate bins having associated loading openings. The operator selectively dumps the refuse into the appropriate bins.
In communities in which mandatory recycling is employed, the residents may be required to segregate their waste into two or more collection containers. For example in some communities each resident has a container for bottles and cans, a container for newspapers, and a container for all other trash. The containers themselves may be color coded to facilitate collection by the trash collection service.
In an effort to expedite the trash collection process, some communities collect certain types of trash on certain days. For example, bottles and cans may be collected on one day of the week, newspapers on another day of the week and the remaining trash on still another day of the week. Consequently, residents are required to place trash at curbside on multiple days each week. It is considered desirable to, if possible, collect all the trash on a single day.
Vehicles having multiple compartments and means for loading the trash into the compartments have been suggested in the past. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,070 illustrates a separated discards carrier which includes a power dump "glass" bucket, a power dump "can" bucket and a rack for receiving paper.
Another example of a multiple compartment vehicle is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,480,531 to Dinneen, which includes an elongated trough extending along the longitudinal side of the body. The trough is divided into multiple compartments and is raised and lowered to empty the contents of the trough into a divided trash receiving compartment.
A similar vehicle configuration is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,570. The disclosed vehicle includes multiple, individual buckets disposed along the longitudinal side of the truck body which are raised and lowered to empty trash into compartments defined by vertical, transverse walls positioned within the body. In Canadian Patent No. 1,264,702 a similar construction is illustrated. The disclosed vehicle also utilizes a plurality of individual buckets disposed along the side of the truck body.
In German Patent No. DE3537546 a refuse collecting vehicle is illustrated which includes a chassis subdivided by horizontal partitions. A multi-compartment bucket is used to transport trash from curb level to openings defined in the body. Trap doors disposed in the partitions are opened and closed in order to communicate openings in the roof of the truck body with the compartments. Rams are used to push material from the front of the truck body towards the rear.
Other prior suggested vehicles require the operator to change the loading position as the compartments fill with trash. For example, as the front end of the compartment is filled, the operator is required to move along the length of the vehicle to place trash at the rear of the compartment.
Still others, require that one type of trash be loaded at the front of the vehicle whereas the other type of trash be loaded from a different location. In other words, the operator is required to separately load the compartments from different loading positions thereby substantially increasing the work effort that must be expended by the operator in loading the vehicle.